On Monday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib put on the waterworks when she announced her decision not to visit her grandmother in the West Bank despite being given the okay from Israel.
The Israeli government used my love and desire to see my grandmother to silence me and made my ability to do so contingent upon my signing a letter – reflecting just how undemocratic and afraid they are of the truth my trip would reveal,” she said in a statement. “Visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions meant to humiliate me would break my grandmother’s heart. Silencing me with treatment to make me feel less-than is not what she wants for me – it would kill a piece of me that always stands up against racism and injustice.
It was quite the performance, but President Trump wasn’t buying it. “I don’t buy Rep. Tlaib’s tears,” he tweeted on Tuesday. “I have watched her violence, craziness and, most importantly, WORDS, for far too long. Now tears? She hates Israel and all Jewish people. She is an anti-Semite.”
Sorry, I don’t buy Rep. Tlaib’s tears. I have watched her violence, craziness and, most importantly, WORDS, for far too long. Now tears? She hates Israel and all Jewish people. She is an anti-Semite. She and her 3 friends are the new face of the Democrat Party. Live with it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2019
As of this writing, Trump’s tweet, which comes in the wake of both Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar sharing an anti-Semitic cartoon on Instagram, has been liked more than 123,700 times and retweeted over 32,500 times.
During the Monday performance, Tlaib also called for the United States to cut aid to Israel, and accused the Jewish state of being an occupying force.
“I would encourage my colleagues to visit, meet with the people we were going to meet with, see the things we were going to see, hear the stories we were going to hear,” said Omar, who represents a district in Minnesota. “We cannot let Trump and Netanyahu succeed in hiding the cruel reality of the occupation from us. So I call on all of you to go. The occupation is real, barring members of Congress from seeing it does not make it go away. We must end it together.”
_____
Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
Join the conversation as a VIP Member